The SWTOR thread

April 19th, 2014, 23:14

Don't worry it's all fine, good, understandable and nothing wrong with.
What makes me clueless in the end is why Bioware didn't make a proper PR around it. There are many players that won't try the game at all being afraid of possible p2w content. Too many games have it and if the creator is silent, noone will risk it.

Well I downloaded the game and while my old computer could technically play it, it was bad. For comparison LOTRO plays well on my comoputer and looks very good. SW at the rock bottom settings would stutter along and looked horrible. I may try it again when I get a new laptop, whenever that is.

They get a lot of new players going by how many 1st timers I've seen over the last 3 weeks or so (when I restarted playing) despite the low advertisement and ESO launch. No idea of the retention rate though.

I also had much better experience with pugs than I did at launch and right when the game turned F2P. That is sort of refreshing.

As for performance, yeah, it sucks, especially in the Fleet. I still get lag at the GTN.

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I'll say it again: SWTOR has a great F2P system. The reason? The Cartel Market.

Somebody said earlier that you could only buy weekly PVP passes with cash, but that's not true. Other players get extra stuff like this when they buy item packs, so they sell them on the Cartel market for credits. Same with Operations (end-game PVE) weekly passes. As already mentioned, it's pretty easy to earn credits at end-game through the daily missions, so I really don't feel very limited in what I can do by buying these passes with credits.

The best part is that you can get most of the character unlocks this way as well, and many of them are available as account-wide unlocks that apply to all your characters (at a more expensive price, of course).

You name it, it's available for purchase on the Cartel Market with credits: Extra crew skill, extra inventory space, extra cargo space, etc; and all of them available on an account-wide basis. I spent about $10 up front to go premium and get all 3 crew skills and an extra hotbar, and after that I got into the habit of looking for deals on account-wide unlocks on the Cartel Market. It's great because I pretty much have all the unlocks I need now (including a Rattataki race unlock for my new Imp character), and feel like I own the game rather than rent it. I stepped away a few months ago to play some other games, and I like that I didn't have to worry about stopping billing, and can step back in anytime and pick up where I left off.

SWTOR has made me a big fan of F2P, but only if it's done right like this…

Originally Posted by Sumerisle
The bot you mention 'Training Droid: Hovers at your side for combat assistance' it's just a pet. It hovers around, but cannot assist you in any way. It doesn't give XP bonus, or anything.

As far as I know it is only available to CE owners, no ?

Originally Posted by Sumerisle
The main issue with PVP is that the number of matches per day is limited if you are F2P.

Same goes for "Flashpoints" and "Operations" (FPs are raids for 4 people, rarely 2, and OPs are for 8 or 16 people).

The middle thing between subscriber (and as a user of anm "play time card"you are a time-lkimited subscriber) and an F2P player is what is called in SWTOR the "Preferred Status". DDO has a similar thing.

My biggest complaint is the "Artifact quality item allowance", so I call it, which allows to use items in purple-framed "artifact quality" with your character and your "Companions". "Purple-framed" means that the items' icon has a purple frame around it. Green frames are normal items, equippable by everyone, but they are not BIS ("best-in-slot"). BIS are only "artifact quality" items

And this "Artifact qiuality items allowance" is quite expensivew in terms of buying via Cartel Coins. It's not really p2w, because you can easily play your game without the "purple items", but it is quite an annoyance not being able to use them.

The secvond most irritationg restriction imhpo is the allowance how much Credits a character can have. F2P least, "Preferred Status" middle, subscribers most.

But the worst thing, imho,m is, that F2P cannot make any bug tickets. And thus not get any help.

In my opinion, DDO is far better, because it has far less restrictions. But it is not Star Wars, though …

Originally Posted by Toff
Well I downloaded the game and while my old computer could technically play it, it was bad. For comparison LOTRO plays well on my comoputer and looks very good. SW at the rock bottom settings would stutter along and looked horrible. I may try it again when I get a new laptop, whenever that is.

Yes, that's imho a big problem, too.

--  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Buying the artifact authorization in the Cartel is fine, as long as you're willing to do without through most of your leveling, so you can buy it after you've got some credits banked up. But honestly, how important is it to wear purple gear while leveling? In 5 levels, you'll be finding green gear that's better. Just accept the fact that you won't wear purple gear until you're max level, which is fine because that's where it really matters anyway.

In my case, I bought an account-wide artifact unlock when I was in my mid-to-late-40s, when I finally found a decent deal at 450k credits (I had seen it for sale this low a few times during my regular checks as I leveled, so I had a decent idea of how low it could go).

The credit limit is also not that big of a deal, because your credits still accrue in an escrow balance, and you can buy escrow transfers on…wait for it…the Cartel Market! This basically translates into a slight-to-moderate penalty on credit gains for f2p players once you hit the 350k cap.

For example, I currently have 1.8 million credits in escrow, and I also have three 600k escrow transfers, which I picked up for 105k each when some guy dumped a bunch of them. This means that getting access to my 1.8 million credits will have cost me 315k, which essentially translates to a ~15% "tax" on my credit accumulation, which seems totally worth it to me to avoid paying $15/month in perpetuity. And has been mentioned numerous times, credits are easy to come by in this game. Even though that 1.8 mil doesn't show up in my inventory, I know I have access to it anytime I decide to spend it, which is fine with me.

Playing f2p like this is kind of an interesting meta game, where I actually get some enjoyment out of withholding as much money from EA as possible while I enjoy their game. And I don't feel a bit bad about it, because I've seen first-hand how some people spend money hand over fist with every update and new item pack. My guild leader is insane in this regard. I actually got a free ewok companion because he bought like 8 of 'em with real money and handed them out to all the guildmates that were online at the time. Crazy…

I think it was a good decision for SWTOR to go free to play. Dedicated players will still spend lots of money and the game seems to be flourishing at the moment. I like the game a lot. I hope for a more entertaining PvP tho.

--  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

--  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

--  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

--  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

… Some bugs are just … really … REALLY, and I mean REALLY - did I say REALLY ? -

AWFUL. Just this. Awful. There aren't no better words than this I guess.

If this is true, then it has most EASILY reached the number 1 in the world-wide competition called "the most weird and game breaking bug in 2014".

And this is how it goes.

In SWTOR, there is your character screen.

It shows on tab 1 your character, on tab 2 your companion (which you can kind of scroll through, because there are several companions) and on tab 3 your class ship.

According to the linked thread from above, it seems now to be so with Patch 3.0.1
that in SWTOR the system called "Bolster", which is meant to lift PvE and PvP people onto an same basic PvP level when they go into an PvP match,
that this Bolster system is bugged so that it computes this PvP Bolster so that it adds gear parts of your class ship into the character's personal stats.

And this just shouldn't be. Stats of an starship shouldn't be influencing the own character's health pool and other character's stats.

Quoting the original poster who started the linked thread :

Today , 10:17 PM | #1

Well here's the real reason why bolster boosts some players HP.

For whatever reason, the equipment on your ship boosts both HP and bonus damage. Equipping the level 40ish ship components for 15k each from the fleet vendor will give you +50 bonus damage, +2.5k HP. I guess the better the ship equipment, the bigger the boost!

--  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

--  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

--  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

I just re-subbed. Since TFA trailer was released I got a Star War hitch and having played TESO Welcome Back beta players and Wildstar 10 days trial recently, I needed something I found more entertaining. Looked like a win-win to me. Compared to TESO and Wildstar, SWTOR early content really grabs you, even if you have done it multiple times over the gameplay also have the bonus of not making my wrist cry in agony.

That 12x XP for leveling starting May 4th means that I should be able to finish the stories this time without all the crappy side quests stuff that bore me to tears past level 30 too.

I also find the 3.0 classes changes interesting. I'll have to play my Shadow, Marauder and Vanguard before a final conclusion though.

This works like what we call here a "Snowball System" : THe link can be used by 5 poeople to get that vehicle - and these 5 people EACH ONE get their OWN link as well - which means that EACH ONE OF THEM can give the vehicle to other 5 people through their own links …

--  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)